Waiting FOR GOD'S TIMING

by Rabbi Jason Sobel

God’s timing in our lives is one of those things that often trips us up. We sometimes wonder what he is doing and question if he is even listening. We ask God for something, and seemingly nothing happens. We want Aunt Martha healed, but she remains sick or even dies. We want that promotion, but someone else gets it. Instead of getting the answer we want, we often get silence.

We struggle like Job. “I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer; I stand up, but you merely look at me” (Job 30:20 NIV). But in the end, faith recognizes that God is wiser than we are and that he is outside of time. He sees the whole picture and is doing something bigger than we can imagine. As we acknowledge him, trust him, and lean not on our own understanding, he lights the path for us to follow (Proverbs 3:5–6).

Abram recognized this and trusted God’s faithfulness. As hard as it is at times, so should we. Another writer put it this way:

"Let us learn this lesson—God never forgets, he cannot forget! He sees the end from the beginning; he is in the eternal now. He is from everlasting to everlasting. He is not in the flux of time; he is outside it. He does not see things as we do. He seems to forget but he does not."¹